fractal means having the form of a fractal; having to do with fractals. It carries an Arena rating of 1947, earned across 19 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, fractal ranks #76 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #178 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,070 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,270 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say.
fractal is pronounced /ˈfɹæk.təl/.
Why “fractal” is a great word
A geometric figure or mathematical set exhibiting self-similarity at arbitrarily small scales and characterized by a non-integer dimension. From French fractal, from Latin fractus ("broken, fragmented"), the perfect passive participle of frangō ("to break"), coined in 1975 by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. Unlike "symmetrical" (describing balanced, regular patterns at a single scale) or "Euclidean" (pertaining to the smooth, integer-dimensional world of classical geometry), fractal describes irregular, recursive complexity across infinite scales. It is the jagged coastline where each bay contains smaller bays still; the branching of a bronchial tree repeated down to the microscopic; the delicate, self-replicating filigree of a fern—a quiet testament to how the deepest order is found not in smooth perfection, but in persistent, broken iteration.
Etymology
From French fractal, from Latin fractus (“broken”), perfect passive participle of frangō (“break, fragment”).
adj
- Having the form of a fractal; having to do with fractals.
- Exhibiting a fractal-like property.e.g.“A fractal situation emerges in this way then: the consequences of Ulysses' decision to abandon Calypso are not entirely predictable.” — 2007, Vincent Spina, “Three Central American writers: alone between two cultures”, in Carlota Caulfield, Darién J. Davis, editors, Companion to United States Latino Literatures, →ISBN:
noun
- A mathematical set that has a non-integer and constant Hausdorff dimension, corresponding to a geometric figure or object that is self-similar at arbitrarily small scales and thus has infinite complexity.
- An object, system, or idea that exhibits a fractal-like property, such as the property of self-similarity at numerous but not infinitely many scales.e.g.“In essence, you are assuming that each segment of a company is a fractal of the whole[…]” — 1999, John J. McGonagle, Carolyn M. Vella, The Internet Age of Competitive Intelligence, →ISBN:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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